Sapiens tells the (or rather, one possible) story of human history, arguing that it has been decisively shaped by three revolutions: cognitive, agricultural and scientific. Grand narratives of human history are often written by scientists, and Yuval Noah Harari’s early chapters follow current scientific consensus and also the readable but rather bald style of much popular scientific writing. The first humans evolved around 2.5 million years ago and soon diversified into several species. These included Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens, who probably co-existed, sometimes interbreeding, for tens of thousands of years. They were middle-ranking animals – small-scale hunters, gatherers and scavengers – until, for reasons we don’t understand, sapiens b